Addressee: Don’t quite see where the R comes from in this. The clue is “Recipient of writing, perhaps in total five points”. I assume it’s add=total and 5 points=ESSEE.

7

Gridiron: (Crossword) grid + iron. But a bit tricky if you’re not familiar with US sports.

8

Eagle eye: “Brood of pheasants oppressed by raptor’s close observation”. The obvious explanation would be “brood of pheasants” with raptor (=eagle) on top of it. However, I can’t find eye as a collective noun for pheasants. Wikipedia does give “a nye of pheasants”, which sounds similar.

11

Bunsen burner: Didn’t entirely get this either. “Heating apparatus such as Alfred the Great’s keeping oven half out of commission”. Heating apparatus = bunsen burner and “bun burner” = Alfred (story about him buring cakes). But I’m struggling to work out the “sen”.

15

Unbendable: Unendable around b.

16

Scimitar: Scar around I’m + it + &lit.

17

Trillion: I think this is final letters of lost and over + IL + LI (1 pound each way) + on. Very good clue, but I was unconvinced by “on = bet”.

18

Tariff: TA + riff.

20

Mammal: Mamma + l.

23

Stoic: Sic around t[a]o.

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17D I wasn’t convinced by bet=ON either
14A Can anyone enlighten me?
7D I always thought that the GRIDIRON was the field that the game was played on rather than the game itself
20D I wasn’t quite happy with the definition
2D Although I’m happy to see an alternative to “alien” or “film” for ET I wouldn’t have thought that the abbreviation for Employment Training would be known sufficiently widely to merit its use(certainly not by me anyway)

14A I reckon the “achievement beginning to end” part is SUCCESS being turned into UCCESSS then the whole lot inside STORY (“tale about”) and the def. being the first half. But the profusion of S makes this look weird.

20D I wasn’t happy with this at all – Mammals aren’t the only animals to have babies are they?

I think Beermagnet is right about 14ac. I wasn’t convinced by this clue at all. All it seems to be doing is “encrypting” SUCCESS STORY by using SUCCESS STORY with two of the esses in different positions.

‘R’ for ‘writing’ (one of the three Rs) has appeared is several crosswords this year. Certainly in one of the FTs and I have a vague recollection that it may even have been in the Times (though my memory could be playing tricks).